UPDATE 1-Kosmos expects to resume drilling on Ghana's TEN project in early 2018

Reuters Staff

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(Adds conference call details, share move)

Nov 6 (Reuters) - Kosmos Energy Ltd said it expects to resume development drilling on Ghana’s multi-billion dollar TEN deepwater oil and gas project in early 2018, rather than around the end of this year as it previously expected.

U.S.-listed shares of Kosmos rose as much as 4.7 percent to a near two-and-half-year high of $8.48.

Tullow Oil Plc, Anadarko Petroleum Corp, Ghana National Petroleum Corp and PetroSA also have stakes in the TEN project.

Dallas, Texas-based Kosmos is working with the partners to bring a second rig into Ghana in 2018, Chief Executive Andrew Inglis said on a post-earnings call on Monday.

In September, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea drew an ocean boundary favouring Ghana in a maritime border dispute with its neighbour Ivory Coast, opening the way for development drilling to resume on the TEN project.

The decade-old row between the two West African neighbours has slowed the development of oilfields.

Kosmos also estimated it would require two shutdowns in 2018, resulting in about four weeks of downtime, to stabilise the turret of the floating production, storage and offloading vessel at its Jubilee field in Ghana.

An issue with the turret bearing was identified in February 2016. The company had previously planned a shut down of 5-8 weeks in late 2017.

Planning for the rotation of the vessel in the Jubilee field is also ongoing, with work expected to begin around year-end 2018, Kosmos said.

During the third quarter of 2017, Kosmos said its gross sales volumes from Ghana averaged about 160,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), including volumes from the Jubilee and TEN fields which averaged about 100,000 bopd and 60,000 bopd, respectively. (Reporting by Arathy S Nair in Bengaluru; additional reporting by Muvija M; Editing by Susan Fenton and Maju Samuel)